T WAS apparent to all in touch with the situation, whether in Paris and London or in the capitals of southeastern Europe, that the salvation of central Europe depended, in the early summer of 1919, on the immediate ousting of Bela Kun from his position as Bolshevist dictator of Hungary. Bauer, Bauer, Premier in Austria, was holding his people together by sheer force of personality and willpower; Bolshevist money was advancing the propaganda of Communism through Czechoslovakia and Jugo-Slavia; Italy was by no means safe, and in Germany anything might happen. Bolshevism in Hungary was a running sore, likely to spread infection throughout the whole emaciated political body of the Continent.

But, as far as the Interallied Relief Commission in central Europe was concerned, Bela Kun was more than a political menace; he was threatening the integrity and success of our enterprise for the rehabilitation of those feeble new states. states. Hungary lay in the centre of the whole economic organism. Our telephone and telegraph lines to Belgrade and Bucharest from Vienna were out of commission. The Danube, over which most of the supplies from the Banat and the Batchka districts ordinarily moved to Austria and Czechoslovakia, was completely tied up. A large number of locomotives imperatively needed for

supply and food movements had been withdrawn from service, and the direct railroad lines from Galician and Rumanian oil-fields were closed to us. The resultant necessity for using circuitous routes, in territories where, at best, railroad facilities were falling to pieces and rapid transportation was difficult, made the work of relief practically impossible.

I was in constant touch with Hoover in Paris; he required no exhaustive explanation of our situation to spur him on to the most strenuous efforts, and the Supreme Council was immediately drawn into a discussion of ways and means. It was a hard nut to crack. Innumerable proposals were advanced, but all were subject to logical objections. Clemenceau put the problem neatly. It reminded him, he said, of the fable of the mice who proposed to bell the cat; all favored the enterprise, but no one of them could offer a plan for successfully carrying it out.

The obvious method was to employ force-to catch Bela Kun and his growing Red Army in great pincers formed by movements from the west and south, and crush him. Marshal Foch was summoned for conference; he said that this could be done, but that it would take an army of 250,000 men, completely equipped and prepared for a vigorous campaign. This programme staggered Paris, breathing a little more freely after the war and now busily engaged in

apportioning the spoils. Foch's proposition left the Supreme Council cold; they preferred risking the worst from Bolshevism to returning to arms for the sake of avoiding it. Hoover and I felt that Marshal Foch was mistaken in viewing the overthrow of Bolshevism in Hungary as a purely military proposition, because it seemed apparent to us that a stiff and firm show of force at the first moment would have disintegrated Bela Kun's support and wrecked his plans. But the Supreme Council was deciding that question, and the Supreme Council agreed with Foch, although it pigeonholed his recommendations and, with a parliamentary shrug, rid itself at the same time of the whole responsibility and (problem.

Left in this dilemma by Paris we in Vienna had to find our own way out. For some days the prospect was gloomy. Bela Kun's army was being swelled by hourly accretions; his

personal civil representatives were attached to every battalion with the power of life and death over officers and men, which meant that the military was given the Hobson's choice of swallowing Bolshevism or having it rammed down their throats. He was already moving on the Rumanians and the Czechs; the nationalist spirit of the Magyars applauded him for this, and their approbation strengthened his hold. Austria was full of Bolshevist representatives and Bolshevistic propaganda-Bauer (accused

by the French of being himself a Bolshevist sympathizer) was sitting heroically on the lid, but finding it continuously hotter. The crisis for central Europe was fast approaching.

Then an incident occurred that set in motion events leading surely, swiftly, and dramatically to an almost fantastic denouement.

THE

ENTER THE PAWN

GENERAL BOEHM STRUTS IN

HE Hungarian minister to Vienna was caught red-handed in a conspiracy to turn Austria Red, and was summarily sent home. Bauer held his breath then, as we all did, waiting to see what attitude Bela Kun would take in this emergency. If he resented Austria's action it might lead to open warfare, for which Vienna was poorly prepared-in which, as a matter of fact, she would be well nigh helpless. But if he accepted the rebuke and sent a new representative it would seem to indicate that he

was not ready to strike. The man he sent was a General Boehm.

When I saw Boehm I realized that there was a method at hand for the discomfiture of Bela Kun. I had been instructed to keep out of central European politics; the Supreme Council in Paris had entire authority where I had none; and the whole situation was so delicate that a single misstep might bring the whole political structure of the Continent tumbling about our ears. On the other hand, in the words of the headmaster in Stalky and Co., Bela Kun was "bothering me, and I wasn't there to be bothered." I was trying to feed sixty million people and put them on their working feet again, and he was blocking the game. thing had to be done and it was apparent that I and my associates in Vienna would have to do it.

Boehm, I thought, was the key to the situation. He had trained the Hungarian Red Army and because of that was a powerful factor